Hagrid was a simple and straightforward man. Once he accepted Roger's commission, and with his natural passion for magical creatures, he poured himself into the task wholeheartedly. Since their verbal agreement nearly two months ago, Hagrid had worked tirelessly, throwing himself into the breeding and cultivation experiments with relentless enthusiasm.
But the early results were dismal.
His initial experiments all failed. It became clear that the magical creatures within the Forbidden Forest simply didn't meet the specific requirements of his project. Hagrid needed rarer, more unique species — ones difficult to find, much less acquire. His progress stalled, even with Roger regularly sharing non-classified knowledge on cell modification and biological transfiguration.
Cultivating magical creatures without proper materials, Hagrid reflected, was like asking a master chef to cook without ingredients.
Then came a turning point.
Two meetings. Two chance encounters.
The first was two weeks before Halloween. Hagrid had made a routine trip to Hogsmeade, hoping to sniff out potential leads in the shady corners of its taverns — places where magical creature traders, both legitimate and illicit, often lingered.
He found someone.
The figure was wrapped in heavy cloaks and spoke in a distorted voice. Mysterious, but not unusual. In this line of work, anonymity was often a matter of survival. Illegal trade in high-risk magical beasts was a serious offense, after all.
The cloaked trader had what Hagrid had been seeking: a Boggart.
Unfortunately, that was all they had — none of the tiny magical creatures Hagrid truly needed. Still, a Boggart was useful. After the deal was done, the seller insisted on sharing a drink. Tipsy and proud, Hagrid couldn't resist showing off.
"I once trained a rare three-headed dog, yeh know," he bragged. "The trick is keepin' 'em calm. Music helps. Somethin' soft, lullaby-like."
"Music?" the stranger repeated thoughtfully.
After that, the trader disappeared into the night.
Then came the second encounter — even stranger.
Having exhausted his contacts and grown desperate, Hagrid placed ads in several wizarding newspapers, offering a generous reward for leads on unique magical creatures.
Someone answered.
At first, Hagrid didn't take her seriously. She looked no older than ten, with a dreamy expression and eyes full of odd certainty. Her name was Luna Lovegood.
"These creatures really exist?" Hagrid asked, skeptical.
"Blurble Humbugs absolutely exist. There's one right there." Luna pointed to empty air with complete confidence.
Half-doubtful but intrigued, and ever kind to children, Hagrid gave her theory a chance. Following her instructions, he placed the Boggart and the so-called Blurble Humbug together in a controlled environment.
Hagrid was no amateur. Few in the wizarding world could match his skills in magical creature breeding. He had once bred Blast-Ended Skrewts by crossbreeding Manticores and Fire Crabs — both classified XXXXX-level threats.
His talents were beyond dispute.
The idea was to merge traits: the Boggart's ability to sense fear and change form with the Humbug's (alleged) capacity to subtly influence thoughts. Hagrid hoped to breed a creature small enough to be parasitic, capable of responding to the will of its host and modifying its own physical structure accordingly — what Roger had described as a "parasitic beast."
Generation by generation, Hagrid aimed to refine the creature until it responded entirely to human intent — until it could, in theory, be controlled like an extension of one's own thoughts.
But reality had other ideas.
What emerged from Hagrid's efforts was… something else.
After weeks of careful observation, Roger compiled a report on the creature's traits.
In its default state, it appeared no larger than a grain of sand — translucent, faintly glowing with a soft yellow shimmer, like a firefly without a source.
Fragile. Harmless. Almost pretty.
But contact with intelligent beings triggered a dramatic metamorphosis. It shifted from a physical form into a semi-spectral state, clinging to the soul and mind of its host. It began conjuring deeply personal illusions — hallucinations born from fear, feeding on the very terror it created.
Fear was its nourishment.
The more fear it consumed, the stronger it became. As it fed, it began to evolve again — no longer semi-spectral, but something far more insidious: a thought-form.
An entity composed not of matter or spirit, but of pure, self-sustaining thought. A heart demon, as ancient Eastern texts might have called it — a manifestation of inner fear and obsession, living inside the psyche.
Roger didn't let it complete the final transformation. He halted it in its current state — barely contained, barely understood.
He gave it a name in his notes: Fear Demon.
Then he turned to Hagrid, face uncharacteristically grave.
"Hagrid," he said quietly. "Destroy it."
"I'm sealing all the data from this experiment. Every creature you've cultivated — without exception — will be destroyed."
Roger's voice was calm, almost detached. But Hagrid could feel the weight in his words — firm, final, unquestionable.
"Today, I'll carry out the destruction myself."
Hagrid reeled back, stunned. "What?! But—"
"There is no 'but.'"
Roger raised his wand and pressed the tip gently against his temple.
Hagrid watched in confusion as a silver strand of thought slowly unraveled from Roger's mind, drawn out with practiced precision. Roger had long since mastered Occlumency — a necessity during his research into brain modification and the construction of the alchemical mind. Extracting a coherent thought-memoria was almost second nature to him.
The wizarding world may not possess a Warp-like realm where thoughts evolve into apocalyptic forces — but it does have a sea of collective unconsciousness, a shared mental undercurrent that binds all magical beings.
Why can a spell be cast by anyone who knows the incantation, regardless of whether they understand its inner workings? Why does magic respond to language, emotion, and shared belief?
The collective unconscious plays a silent but central role. A concept explored in depth in Ritual Magic Is More Than Just Blood Sacrifice.
And now, a horrifying thought had taken root in Roger's mind:
If Hagrid's "Fear Demon" evolved further — if it learned to anchor itself within that unconscious sea, using the minds of wizards as vectors — what then?
Roger had seen something eerily similar in his past life: The Dream Man.
It had begun as a meme — a shared nightmare, viral and unstoppable. It spread through stories, dreams, whispers. A self-replicating psychic contagion that threw entire cities into chaos.
And that was in a world without magic.
Here, with spells that manipulate minds and souls, what might the Fear Demon become? A spiritual predator like Freddy Krueger — something capable of killing in dreams, through thought alone?
In this world, very few truly understood magic of the soul or psyche. And those who did — Voldemort among them — were rarely the kind to intervene for the greater good.
More likely, they'd watch. Or worse, use it.
With a flick of his wand, Roger compressed the entire line of reasoning — the fears, deductions, and worst-case projections — into a single, cohesive memory thread.
Then he touched the tip of his wand to Hagrid's forehead.
A pulse of silver light.
Hagrid gasped as the thought entered his mind.
Roger said nothing more. He didn't need to.
Some truths didn't require words — only understanding.
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